til death do us part
by thecivilunrest
Summary: The cruelest things really are what we can't have. Jem/Sophie


**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Infernal Devices_. If I did Jem would not be dying and Will... well, let's not even go there, shall we?

**A/N: **I'm not really quite sure how I feel about this piece, but it's done and I like it well enough to post it, so reviews are appreciated. Also: Sophie and Jem FTW! Just had to get that out. :D

'_Til Death Do Us Part_

When I wake up in the morning there's work to be done, but then there's always work to be done, even when the masters aren't around. There are things to be mended and tables to dust and rooms to tidy. This is my lot in life, though, and I had accepted that a long time ago, before I even got my scar. I would never get what I really wanted in life, I would never be able to stop working. To feed myself I would forever have to work my finger's to the bone. Working at the London Institute was the best job that I would ever have, though, and I knew better than to complain. When mum was alive complaining always meant a slap in the face and even after she died complaining always made things worse than they had to be. So I never complained anymore.

I can barely move my legs and my arms feel like I strapped an entire train across my back, but I've been like this for days now. It's one part fear and one part worry, this weight that's on my body. One of the worst parts of working for Shadowhunters was the waiting. The waiting would be just that much more bearable if I wasn't in love with one of the warriors.

But I was, as horrible as that was. I was in love with Jem Carstairs, as pathetic as that sounded. Before I worked at the Institute I had worked with girls that had fallen in love with someone that had employed them. I had called them stupid and idiotic, because they knew as well as I did that their employer could never love them back.

I watched as they pined away, as they broke their own hearts by allowing themselves to watch as the men that they loved got married to someone else. I had laughed at them, knowing that I myself would never join their numbers. Seldom few times did their employers love them back, and even fewer times did things have a happy ending. More often that not they were used, their virtue taken, and thrown out of the house all within a week.

I had sworn to myself that that would never happen to me. But then most promises are meant to be broken, especially the ones make to yourself.

Ever since the day that I had met Jem Carstairs I loved him. I had tried my hardest to resist falling in love with him, but these things often just happened. I hadn't believed it before it had happened to me, but I knew that you couldn't choose the people that you loved. It had happened to me gradually, without warning, and then out of nowhere it came and hit me from behind like a frying pan to the head that I was absolutely positively in love with him.

Jem was one of the best people that I had ever known. He was kind to everyone, even the loathsome Will Herondale, and he never had a bad thing to say about anyone. And I, who had known nothing but cruel or absentminded and uncaring men, had fallen off the edge upon which we danced, and I knew that Jem did not fall with me.

And then just like that I had become one of those pining girls that I had sworn that I never would be.

I did not want to love him, of course I didn't. Jem was a gentlemen and a Shadowhunter to boot. Shadowhunters were forbidden to marry mundanes like myself. But not loving him would be like trying to get my heart to stop beating and so I had to live with myself, with my broken heart, day after day.

It was so horribly unfair, but I was used to unfairness by now and I knew that it would be idiotic to expect anything different from my life. So I had promised that he would never ever know of my secret, the only one that I had really ever had. A few times I had forgotten myself and I had cause others to learn of my arcanum but he had never known.

Only once had I ever slipped up, and that was when they had departed for this last mission, the one that would for sure defeat the Magister and his clockwork army. All of the inhabitants of the Institute, staff included, had met in the main room for one last time, checking on things that needed to be checked on... and to say good-bye, even thought that normally wasn't the Shadowhunter way, but this mission, this battle, was different.

My gaze had not wavered from Jem the entire time that I was aware that he was in the room. Normally I would have tried not to look at him too much, but there was a very distinct possibility that he might just die this time and I wouldn't have been able to bear it if I hadn't looked at him enough to sate me for the rest of my life. Jem had just barely recovered from a bout of his illness but he had refused to be left behind. I loved him all the more for his loyalty, but I was selfish enough to wish that he had just offered to stay behind.

As they were leaving Jem had turned around suddenly, as if he had just then noticed the weight of my gaze. The look on his face was something that I couldn't quite read, but it had made butterflies appear in my stomach and my mouth to dry. His silver eyes had met mine and then just like that he was gone.

Now I was still suffering under the curse of loving him forever. Perhaps his look was only because Tessa had told him that I loved him. I knew that she knew and I had seen them talking quietly beforehand, which had caused a spark of jealousy to come alive. But I also saw the way that she looked at Will and I knew that she was not interested in Jem's affection.

Perhaps the only reason that he had looked at me was because he had felt sorry for me. There were a million reasons why he might have looked back at me like that, and I was tormenting myself with them all.

As I continued to work I could hear the ticking of the clock. _Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. _The sound was going to drive me absolutely mad. Every second that they were away, fighting, there was a chance that he would never return.

I loathed myself for caring this much about someone that would never care about me but I would loath myself more if I acted as though I didn't care at all. Setting down my mending I placed my head in my hands and breathed deeply, try to calm my beating heart. It would do no one any good if I could not calm myself.

"Sophie?" I heard a soft voice call my name and I looked up. It was probably the new coachman, wondering what in the world was wrong with me. I didn't blame for thinking that I'd gone mad. Maybe I had.

Only it wasn't Thomas's replacement. It was Jem. He was home. My heart swelled with relief and I wanted to laugh I was so relieved. Jem did not die. Jem was perfectly fine and standing in front of me. Quickly I remembered myself, I worked for his house and it would not do for me to be sitting down while he was standing up, and I stood, my mending going all over the floor. He must need something.

"Jem," I replied, and perhaps this should have been my first clue. Never would I have said his name so intimately if I was in my right mind. He came over to me, giving me the same sort of look that he had right before he had left, and then suddenly I was in his arms.

He brought me close to his chest and it was just like I had imagined it to be in all of my fantasies, except a thousand times better. Normally I would have been shocked, scandalized because this sort of behavior was certainly _not _proper, but this was _Jem _and I just didn't care.

Jem let go of me and then he held me at arms length, his hands on my shoulders, examining me. "Are you alright?" he asked, and once again I almost laughed because it was so like him to be worried about anyone other than himself, even though he was the one that had just gone through a battle.

"I'm fine. Are _you _alright?" I searched his face for any semblance of pain, for any inkling of it. But he seemed to be fine, _better _than fine, even. He looked far healthier than I had seen him in recent months.

"I just had this horrible feeling that I would never see you again," he whispered, and even though I was not one to be wooed by sweet words whispered in my ear I knew without a hint of doubt that Jem meant them. The words he spoke were quite possibly the most sincere that I had ever heard.

He raised his hand and placed it on my face, right on my scar. I sucked in air through my teeth. No one ever touched my scar except myself, but I would let him do it, if only because it was Jem and I was so fantastically happy that I would forgive anything. "But now you have." I smiled at him and his face relaxed as he smiled back.

"Where are the others?" I asked, suddenly remembering myself. Anyone could walk in at any time and I would be ruined. Jem might not have done it on purpose, but he still could tarnish my reputation. Things may have been more relaxed at the Institute, but I could never completely let go of the society that shunned me.

I could hear no sounds coming from below us, from beside us. Surely if the others had arrived as well there would be some kind of noise, something to alert me of their presence. But perhaps I was too wrapped up in Jem to notice anything else. I didn't mind it.

"I came alone. I just had to see you," he whispered, and then he brought his face close to mine. I could feel his breath on my face and I knew why he was hesitating. And all of a sudden it didn't matter if the others were going to come and take this all away from me. They weren't going to do so before I got what he was willing to give me. Standing up on my toes I brought my mouth to his.

It was not a chaste kiss, but one full of unspoken feelings and worries and gratitude. I was very glad that he was here with me now, even if no one else was. It felt like several weeks had passed by the time that I had to pull away to breathe, and I noticed that I was not the only one who was breathing heavily.

"I love you," he whispered and I pulled back wide eyed. He couldn't really have just told me that, could he? The words that I had longed for for so long coming from him suddenly were made real, in my fantasies no longer. Tears welled up in my eyes and I would never have realized that one had fallen if Jem hadn't caught it with his finger. "Aren't you going to say anything?" he finally asked after a while. I could see that there was fear in his eyes. He thought that I didn't feel anything for him at all, that I was crying because I was ashamed. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"I love you too," I managed to gasp out and then all of a sudden Jem's lips were on mine once more. I raised my arms and wrapped them around his neck. I could feel the slightly curled hair on the back of his neck and I ran my fingers through it. At that moment there wasn't anything more delectable than getting kissed by Jem Carstairs.

Then he slowly pulled away, giving me one last kiss. "I've got to go now," he told me. "But I'll see you again one day." Then he walked out the door.

I sat down in the chair once again, my legs turned to gelatin. His last statement... what had that meant? But then I leaned my head back in my chair, waiting for him to come back. And then, mercifully, I fell asleep.

-:-

I awoke to something downstairs being dragged across the floor. I stood, a crick in my neck from sleeping in a chair. I must have slept there all night. I had to admit that I was a bit shocked that Jem hadn't come back to check on me, to wake me. I would have been glad to see him once again.

I ran down the stairs, hoping to finally understand what was going on. When I got there what I saw chilled my blood. Will Herondale, one of the absolute worst people that I had ever had the misfortune of meeting, had tear tracks on his face. That could only mean one thing. Jem.

The others were around him, their faces unreadable. Before I could stop myself I screamed at Will. "Where is he? Where is he, what happened?" He looked up at me, his blue eyes tired. This must have happened while I was asleep; I should have known that there was no way that Jem could have left me.

"He died in battle yesterday," Will said and I went still. There was no way that he could have died yesterday, he was with _me _yesterday. "His memorial is tomorrow." Will then paused and looked up at me. "I'm sorry." His face crumpled with pain and then he turned away from me.

It felt as though I was falling into a large hole. My lungs expanded and the contracted. I fell to the floor, my legs giving out on me, and put my face in my hands. And then the sobs began.

His memorial would be tomorrow, which meant that his bones were already burned. I would never seen his face again. I would never be near him again, because mundanes were not allowed at Shadowhunter functions. I knew that now he was in a better place, that the pearly gates of heaven would open for him immediately, but I was selfish enough not to care. I wanted him here, I wanted him with me.

And then yet another blow struck me: None of it was real. Yesterday, the happiest day in my short miserable life, had never happened. In my fatigue I had imagined the whole thing, Jem and I had never kissed he had never told me that he loved me. I had never told him that I loved him.

And then I started crying harder because I must have sensed somehow that Jem had died and my mind had toyed with me.

The cruelest things really are what we can't have.

**A/N: **So I've just got to ask... what do _you _think that Jem was. A ghost, a dream, Sophie's mind unraveling? I left it up to interpretation so I'd really like to know what you think!


End file.
